One Method…

“Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems” -Rene Descartes

I was having a conversation with some friends the other day and as we discussed the benefits of a one track mind, I thought of the above concept. I was having trouble explaining the relevance of the statement to the topic being discussed and found out that this concept will only make sense written, if at all. Since spoken word is not easily reference-able, it is difficult to explain a complex rule without writing it down. So here is my written explanation of how concepts are created, how they are employed, and the benefits of a one track mind.

Having a one track mind allows for the establishment of a rule outside of the scope of language. There are not words to explain all ideas. Only once we have enough ideas interconnecting to establish a truth, do we define it.

This happens even for the simplest truth. We find a hard gray object, then another, and another, and so on. They all have similar filler information. We feel solidity, we see the color, the shape, the locations, etc. until we come to the conclusion that these things are consistently similar, giving us a rule to explain an outcome. They can then on be defined similarly, in this case as a rock. We do this to give broad use to a singular concept. Its all about efficiency of processing thoughts. “Why did that gray thing in the park hurt me when i kicked it?” Because it is a rock and rocks are hard. This is a small scale example because understanding what a rock is, is pretty dang easy, but the same logic applies to everything. When certain input data consistently reach the same conclusion, you have a rule that can then be used as a way to remove some of the filler and give you some room on the white board that is your mind. This is good so the equation can get longer, by being able to fit more inputs into a singular equation or thought.

The white board concept is necessary for me to explain the benefits of a one track mind. Every input concept is part of the equation but your mind can’t write things down on endless amounts of paper like you could outside your mind. Not that you would want to of course, because if it all needed to be written down in the first place, the person does not have an understanding of the singularly calculated “rule”. This is exactly the point of a one track mind. It allows continual focus on the input information so that way you don’t lose any of it and you don’t add unnecessary info to take its place in the form of a distraction.

Distracting info also takes up space. You can only have so many things flowing through your mind at once. So if you can keep your mind on a single track, continually adding relevant information, you get a clearer and more complex rule as the outcome. The longer you can keep the input data on the white board, the more concepts you can understand and the further you can push those concepts to create new ones as the offspring of the former, the further you can continue upon the linear path before reaching a roadblock, being the edges of the white board. Once you create these new and superior ideas you throw the new idea back into the equation with another idea to continually create increasingly complex thought. The accumulation of all of the previous ideas that form the new one allow for a singular variable to now exist on the white board as a representation of its complex parts without the necessity of identifying them each individually. Essentially you now have room to write again and the potential for a more complete equation. And we just continue repeating this process.

So in the case of the rock we could now erase the information about hard, gray, etc, and just write the word rock. Its not that you are forgetting the information of what the rock is. Its quite the opposite, its understanding the rules of a singular concept so that they can be archived in a singular file instead of requiring several different files to store the information. Another way to explain this would be if you kept all the words on the white board and just expanded the white board itself but not the words. The bottom line is that you now have more room to implement more input data and create increasingly complex thought.

As with all my posts, this is a living idea that I set up in order for it to be attacked. It needed somewhere to stand in order to be reflected upon further. If an idea has no foundation leading back to its logical roots, humans tend to fill those gaps with rudimentary explanations, and are unable to actually understand the underlying principles that lead to its intellectual superiority as an idea. Ideas seem to me, at least for now, to build upon each other but only with calculated contribution. Otherwise by adding an unprincipled block to the figurative tower of ideas, you are essentially adding an incorrect variable. Like with any incorrect variable in the discovery of mathematical principals, we input these ideas as place holders to identify the rule. Often people see no reason to check the rule, so it stands as it is because it makes sense to the extent of which we understand the equation. The gift of logic though, seemingly unique to humanity, entices us to keep inputting new variables to break down and rebuild the structures of our minds so that the new variable at the top of the equation is actually just a piece to the puzzle that creates a slightly longer continual linear equation perpetually allowing for new variables. Essentially it is our nature to fill gaps of logic.

I state all this to say, that the above blog entry has already been in a way broken down and reconstructed in my mind. I have authored a rough draft in my personal hand-journal of my new literary equation for the concept, but I don’t know yet how to formulate it into words that would be very significant to anyone other than myself. Which is why, if you are reading this, I ask that you look for holes to fill, leaks to plug, and cracked foundations to tear down.

I am hoping someone other than myself might have a better critical eye. Any additional set of mind’s eyes is beneficial because even if I can identify the crack’s existence, I may not know where it is, how to fix it, or how to tear it down.